


Hello Stranger, Goodbye Friend

by sharkplant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - All Human, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, M/M, Making friends on public transport, Strangers on a Bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:51:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkplant/pseuds/sharkplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t like him to fall in love with strangers on the train or the bus. He’d heard of others doing it, seeing only so much of a person and then assuming the rest, falling in love with an idea. This had never been a story to fit Castiel ‘Cas’ Novak. Never once. Not at all. Until today when he was sitting on a bus, on the way to visit California for the fourth time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hello Stranger, Goodbye Friend

**Author's Note:**

> So with all the pain and agony we faced in Goodbye Stranger, I thought Cas on a bus was the greatest thing ever and so this AU spun out in my head.
> 
> Dedicated to [padalackles](http://www.padalackles.tumblr.com) on tumblr because she put up with my ranting about Cas on a bus

It wasn’t like him to fall in love with strangers on the train or the bus.

He’d heard of others doing it, seeing only so much of a person and then assuming the rest, falling in love with an idea.

He’d heard of others who had acted on the odd pull in their chest and spoken to the object of their unreasoned affections, found out they were wrong about everything they thought but seemed to love them more than before because they were wrong.

This had never been a story to fit Castiel ‘Cas’ Novak. Never once. Not at all.

Until today when he was sitting on a bus, on the way to visit California for the fourth time.

The man next to him fidgeted plenty and his facial expression flickered along with his train of thought.

It was interesting to watch and he didn’t look like he cared that Cas was indeed watching him.

He looked squished up into the seat, denim covered legs and blue plaided arms crossed, head resting on the window, eyes staring out it, his breathing shallow, a small bronzy-gold pendent of a sleeping face with horns moved with his chest.

His eyes were almost the green of the wine bottles that Cas’ friends in Seattle liked to drink from and then use as ash trays for the cigarettes they smoked near constantly and his hair was colour of damp sandy beach and Cas felt a little pretentious for describing a person’s features in such a way, as if he were writing everything down, but it wasn’t blonde and it wasn’t red and it wasn’t brown so Castiel just resembled it to what he knew.

And he knew about beaches and bottles and all manner of buses, trains, rooms and people.

He’d seen plenty.

But not enough.

It was never going to be nearly enough.  
Ever.

He certainly hoped that one day he could plant his feet.

But today isn’t that day, he thought and wondered if the man across liked the Lord of the Rings.

And it was here Cas was reminded of his original predicament.

It wasn’t general practise for random bus traveller a to speak with random bus traveller b without something linking the two of them, a point of similarity or simple interaction (e.g. a smile, retrieving a dropped item) to make the segue between being strangers and them being less stranger. At least to each other.

Of course Cas only knew all of this because Meg, his roommate back when he stayed put in one place for longer than a month or so, had forced him to watch movies with her and to hold her when she started to cry or to try and calm her when she shouted at characters who couldn’t (wouldn’t Meg firmly believed) hear her.

The point was the cogentisity (was that a word?) of his hypothesis rested mostly in fiction rather than fact.

A weak point it was but Cas knew no better.

The guy looked away from the window in the whole half an hour it had been since he’d sat down, shuffling past Cas and his terrible habbit of sitting in aisle seats, and his eyes fell on Cas’ and they just watched each for a few moments.

Bottled beach (Cas needed a better name than that nice looking guy sitting across from me to use in his head for the time that he didn’t know Bottled Beach’s true name) looked away back out the window but Cas knew he was smiling.

A quiet buzz ruined the comfortable silence. BB’s eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowing and he looked between Cas and his pocket, as if trying to blame Cas for his phone ringing.  
Cas shrugged anyway, not really sure why and BB dug his phone out and answered.

‘Yeah? Sam? Yeah, I’m on my way. No I don’t care that you’re not packed and I don’t care if you wanna go or not, you’re finally into law school and we’re going to have this thing called fun. Spring break, dude. Live a little.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, Jessica can come too,’ but Cas saw in the roll of his eyes that he didn’t want whoever Jessica was to be there.  
He groaned. ‘Sammy, jus-‘ BB chewed at a finger while he listened. ‘Yeah well I liked Sammy. He hated doing his homework and wanted to play soccer all day. I’d take him any day. See you tonight.’

BB ended the call and smiled Cas but just as Cas was about to ask something about the call (who Sam was so they could have a proper conversation) BB curled himself back into his seat and he was closed off again.

It was probably for this reason that Cas had never fallen in love with a stranger.

Cas was one of these people that hated not knowing. It didn’t matter what it was, Castiel just wanted to know things. About people. About places. About things.

He wanted to know who Sam was and what BB had planned for him for Spring Break. Who Jessica was and if she was nice.

He wanted to know how BB laughed and what was his staple food was when he went to a new restaurant. 

He wanted to know if he snored and how he held his body when he slept, how he cooked pasta, if at all. 

He wanted to know the story behind the pendant of the sleeping face with horns. He wanted to know the books he had read and if he liked them.

He wanted to know if he’d traveled the world, seen more than Cas had on his lowly barista wage. 

He even wanted to know what colour his underwear were and if they were boxers or briefs.

He wanted to know everything.

Of course Cas didn’t really know how to talk to people.

Sure, if they belonged to the do-nothing-art-farty crowd that existed in every city ever, Cas just had to mention a few books he’d read, that he sketched, that he wrote, that he painted; sometimes just saying he travelled everywhere was enough to score a couch or a mattress on a floor for a month until he needed to move on again.

The point was, he was guessing BB wasn’t a DNAF, so that probably wasn’t going to work.

He considered grabbing his sketchbook out of his duffle and scribble for a bit until he could work up the courage to ask if he could draw BB, might even draw him anyways if it would get his attention but he didn’t.

Cas just sat and wondered what stop BB would get off at and that he would never see him again and he would never know what underwear he wore.  
Strangely he needed to know that.

And because Cas was reasonably straightforward, he asked.

BB looked away from the window in favour of looking at Cas and narrowed his eyes and almost smiled.

‘What?’ he asked, drawn out and a little confused.

‘What colour are your underwear?’ Cas repeated, like how someone would ask the time.

BB laughed oddly and Cas forgot for a second why he called the man across from him Bottled Beach because his laugh was surprising in how it sounded like a laugh was meant to sound and the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘Why do you want to know?’

Cas hadn’t really thought the conversation to get this far. He shrugged in lieu of a verbal response.

‘Well it’s a sucky come on if that’s what you were aiming for but it got my attention so props for that,’ the guy said and Cas felt less awkward for asking the question.

‘It wasn’t meant as a come on. I was just curious,’ Cas insisted.

BB nodded to the side. ‘Ok. I’ll take your word for it.’

At this point, Cas was well and truly lost. He had no idea what to say now.

‘I don’t do this,’ Cas said, more to himself.

‘Do what? Ask strangers about their underwear?’ the guy prompted.

Cas shook his head and then thought better of it and nodded. ‘I guess. I mean I don’t talk to strangers about anything at all usually.’

‘Then let us not be strangers.’ BB offered a hand, smiling. ‘’m Dean.’

Cas smiled back, shook Dean’s hand and replied with his own name, feeling remarkably better now he knew at the very least the guys name.

‘So, Cas, why you headed Cali way?’ Dean asked.

Cas shrugged. ‘I don’t really have a reason. What about you? You’re going to California, yes?’

Dean nodded.

‘Who’s Sam?’

Dean quirked a smile. ‘My kid brother. ‘m picking him up so we can have some fun for once. I would be taking my car but dad’s working on it back at the shop.’

‘You’re a mechanic?’ Cas asked.

The smile turned into a smirk. ‘I’m very good with my hands.’

Cas looked at Dean’s hands, not very subtly either; they looked rough and strong but Cas didn’t doubt they could be delicate. His nails were trimmed short and he had on a few silver thick band rings.

Suddenly Cas very much wanted to know how those fingers would feel running along his skin or pressing inside him and there was a thick tug through his gut that settled heavy and he shifted a little in his seat.

He cleared his throat. ‘What were you planning? Going back home?’ Cas asked.

Dean shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. I thought road trip maybe, you know, when I get my car back. It kinda sucks he’s insisting on having his girlfriend tag along, I wanted it to be just us brothers but Sammy is a lawyer so he can convince me of anything really.’

Cas smiled. ‘I think it’s a little brother thing. I used to be the same with Gabriel, although I didn’t argue so much as bribe him with candy.’

Dean laughed. ‘Do you see much of him?’

‘Not really. He dropped out of school and left home when I was fifteen and I haven’t heard much from him since.’

‘Why don’t you call him?’ Dean asked, sounding actually interested.

Cas felt a little strange talking about his older brother with a stranger but he wasn’t a stranger. His name was Dean and he was going to get his brother Sam and he wasn’t a stranger.

‘He never answers.’

The two of them went silent for a bit.

‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ Dean said quietly.

Cas looked at him. ‘Why are you sorry?’

Dean took a deep breath. ‘Ah crap, I shouldn’t be putting my opinions on your personal shit. Just ignore me.’

Cas ignored the sentence. ‘Why are you sorry?’

Dean shrugged again. ‘I guess I would hate not talking to Sammy. It would be really weird. Like I know we had we had this period of about two, maybe three years when we didn’t talk at all. The entire time I was itching to call him or something. It was like I’d lost a limb without him there.’

‘Why weren’t you talking?’

Dean ran a hand through his hair. ‘You ask a lot of questions you know.’

Cas felt a little bad. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nah, it’s fine. A little creepy, but it’s fine.’ Dean smiled at him and he felt better. ‘Sammy applied for Stanford and hadn’t told me and dad until he got in and there was this massive fight between him and dad and then Sammy left and we didn’t talk.’

‘Why didn’t you call?’

‘Because our dad would have killed me. Sam was effectively dead to him but I guess he saw how stupid he was being.’

‘Fathers have a tendency to do that, don’t they?’

Dean laughed dryly. ‘I guess, yeah.’

//

The California air was warm when they clambered off the bus. 

Dean had walked straight toward a tall guy with shaggy hair wearing plaid and jeans. Just like his brother, Cas thought

Cas checked his phone. No messages, no missed calls, no dumb pop ups that Dean had disabled about an hour ago.

He wanted to ask Dean for a drink but Dean was walking away, Sammy next to him.

Cas watched him go before reaching for his pack.

Then Dean twirled around, walking backward, offering a two fingered temple to air salute, his rucksack over his shoulder, like he was being shipped off to war, and a one sided smile, the corner of his left eye crinkling before turning back, sleeping face with horns pendant swinging, and walking away.

Cas missed him already.

//

It was 2 AM when Cas’ phone buzzed next to his head, his eyes blinded by the light when he unlocked it and read the message.

_From: Dean (aka stranger on the bus)  
my underwear = blue btw _

Cas smiled, his cheek pressed to the couch of a guy named Benny, who he’s met and convinced to let him stay at his tiny apartment.

_From: You  
thanks. Thought you’d forgotten. Mine = black _

Cas was almost back to sleep when his phone buzzed again.

_From: Dean (aka stranger on the bus)  
Good to know. i’m going to be here for a few days. Did you want to get a drink sometime?_

_From: you  
Do the wheels on the bus go round and round? _

//

'How did you get my number?' Cas asked after about two rounds and half an hour in Dean's company.

Dean smiled. Cas liked his smile. 'When you asked me to fix your phone. Wasn't that difficult,' he shrugged.

'You could have just asked,' Cas accused, taking a pull of his beer.

Dean shrugged again. 'I'm not so big on the asking questions thing. That's your job.'

And for a second, a blip of a second, Cas liked California for more than its beaches and arty people free-renting out their couches.

He felt like he would like anywhere if there was a Dean next to him on the bus or the train so he could fall in love all over again.


End file.
